News and Opinion

Awarding a £13.8m contract for no-deal Brexit ferry services to a company with no ships is an example of the government “supporting new business”, Chris Grayling has said. The beleagured transport secretary defended the decision to do a deal with Seaborne Freight, despite it never having run a Channel service. It was one of three […]

Jeremy Corbyn has refused to back a second EU referendum despite a poll suggesting almost three-quarters of Labour members want one. A survey of more than 1,000 party members found that 72% would like to see their leader throw his weight behind a People’s Vote. But Corbyn has long resisted such calls and, asked today […]

Jeremy Corbyn is facing further pressure to back a second Brexit referendum after polling showed support among Labour members for another vote. The Labour leader has resisted calls from within his party to back a referendum, instead calling for a general election and promising to strike his own “jobs-first” Brexit deal with Brussels retaining all […]

Gilda Gray built an entire career on the shimmy, the dance she developed as a teenager, writes CHARLIE CONNELLY in the most recent Great European Lives. ‘A ripple here, a quiver there and a 
shudder or two – then I shake all the 
way up from my feet, with everything.’ Gilda Gray built an entire […]

Theresa May has used her New Year’s message to desperately call for MPs to back her Brexit deal, as Downing Street admitted ‘there is still work to do’ within the next 9 days. May has urged MPs to back her Brexit deal saying that passing it into law will allow the UK to ‘turn a […]

Jeremy Corbyn has used his New Year’s message to attack Theresa May and the government for making a ‘mess’ of Brexit. The Labour leader said that the prime minister’s efforts to force through her Withdrawal Agreement in a crunch Commons vote next month, were ‘letting people down all across the country, whether they voted Leave […]

In a new video series, The New European meets some of the 3 million EU citizens living in the UK. Here we meet ANA MOREIRA, a Zumba instructor from Portugal. The fewer than 100 days left until the UK leaves the European Union and there is not a clear path in sight. While all eyes […]

A decision to award a ferry contract in the case of a ‘no deal’ Brexit to a company that owns no ships has been ridiculed by opposition parties. Seaborne Freight was one of three companies awarded contracts totalling £108 million to ease the pressure on Dover if Britain pulls out of the EU without a […]

Ahead of the airing of Brexit: The Uncivil War actor BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH makes a pitch for why we should tune into the drama which looks at those who operated behind-the-scenes during the 2016 EU referendum. You play Dominic Cummings in Brexit: An Uncivil War. Why did you want to take the part? I wanted to […]

Vote Leave boss Dominic Cummings believes the government was wrong to trigger Article 50 how it did, the writer behind Brexit: The Uncivil War has revealed. Award-winning writer James Graham, who wrote both This House and Coalition, has produced the script for the new Channel 4 film to air on January 9th. As part of […]

Almost 200,000 Irish passport applications were received from the UK this year. The number from England, Scotland and Wales increased by more than a fifth compared to 2017, Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs said. Minister Simon Coveney said the total had risen since the Brexit vote in June 2016. Out of the total number of […]

The Scottish Government will work “to protect Scotland’s place at the heart of Europe” in 2019, Nicola Sturgeon has said in a New Year message. Scotland’s first minister said she believed the reputation for being a hospitable country “has never been more important”, and said EU nationals who had made Scotland their home would always […]

A caller has been labelled a ‘bigot’ in a heated radio phone-in debate about the Home Office’s new video for EU nationals. LBC Radio presenter Afua Hirsch reacted angry after caller David claimed ‘you don’t value being British’. Hirsch responded furiously by saying that David summarised ‘everything that is toxic with the Brexit debate’. The […]

Jeremy Hunt has been accused of wanting to turn Britain into “a bargain basement for business” after he said the UK should follow the example of low-tax Singapore after Brexit. In what will be seen as an obvious bid to burnish his leadership credentials with Tory hard Brexiteers, Hunt hailed the south-east Asian city state […]

Jean-Claude Juncker has called on the UK to “get your act together” over Brexit, branding some Britons “entirely unreasonable” for expecting Brussels to put forward a solution. The European Commission president also rejected claims of a plot to keep the UK in the EU “by all possible means” and revealed he fears the majority of […]

It provided the inspiration – and name – for the race, but Greece’s Marathón also has a fascinating linguistic history. PETER TRUDGILL reports. The men’s race at the Athens marathon (marathónios in Greek) was won this year by the Kenyan athlete Misoi Brimin Kipkorir of Kenya, in two hours 10 minutes and 56 seconds; the […]

International trade secretary and Brexiteer Liam Fox has claimed that there is now just a 50% chance of Britain leaving the EU if Theresa May’s deal is rejected. Speaking in the Sunday Times, Fox said that voting for the prime minister’s Brexit plan was the only way to be ‘100% certain’ that the UK will […]

An outspoken Brexiteer who was awarded a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours list says it will have ‘no bearing whatsoever’ in how he votes on Theresa May’s Brexit plan. The controversial decision by Theresa May to give John Redwood an honour has been criticised as ‘desperate’ and has been seen by some as an […]

A People’s Vote – or a second referendum – is the opportunity to give Britons that second chance to stop and think, writes BOB HALE. How many times have we heard someone say ‘in hindsight I would not have said that or in hindsight not done this’? Those of us supporting a People’s Vote are […]

A government department has spent more than £100m on ferries to ease potential problems in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Documents outlining the £107.m agreements say increased border checks in UK ports after Brexit could “cause delivery of critical goods to be delayed” in the event of no deal. The move was described as […]

A pioneering partnership between Google and a leading Dutch museum has brought together every surviving Vermeer painting for the first time ever and exhibited them online. FLORENCE HALLETT considers what it means for art. View of Delft, 1660-61, Mauritshuis. – Credit: Archant Turning towards us, her lips slightly parted as if about to speak, or […]

Theresa May’s decision to award a Brexiteer a knighthood has been branded a ‘desperate attempt to blunt criticism’ in her Brexit plan. John Redwood is one of Parliament’s most outspoken Brexiteers. He was one of the Eurosceptic cabinet ministers branded ‘bastards’ by John Major as he fought to ratify the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, and […]

An artist will plant a weeping willow to symbolise the UK’s ‘sorrow’ on the day that it leaves the EU. Clemens Wilhelm said the Brexit tree will be an ‘ambivalent image for an ambivalent moment’ in history. He will plant the tree on the banks of the River Deveron, close to Huntly Castle in Aberdeenshire, […]

New research has revealed the extent that the public is being kept in the dark over Brexit by the government. The research, carried out by the People’s Vote campaign, found that only 20-25% of all Freedom of Information requests were answered by Brexit-related departments, with the Brexit department refusing to cooperate with more than half […]

Remain campaigners and EU nationals have been angered by a new ‘jolly’ video from the Home Office outlining the application process for EU citizens who want to stay in the UK beyond December 2020. https://twitter.com/ukhomeoffice/status/1078206349148708865 Campaigners have been angered by the ‘cheery’ music and stock images of people smiling as it outlines the government’s EU […]

Jeremy Corbyn is calling for Parliament to be recalled so that MPs can decide the future of Theresa May’s Brexit deal. In an interview with the Independent, the Labour leader said he wanted to ensure the vote took place ‘as soon as possible’ and said that the prime minister was trying to ‘run down the […]

New analysis has found that the Ministry of Defence is losing hundreds of millions of pounds a year in procurement costs because of the fall in the value of the pound due to Brexit. Former Tory defence minister Guto Bebb said it was ‘disastrous’ that the Ministry of Defence is being ‘forced to pay billions […]

For years the pair were at war with each other at the despatch box, but finally the former chancellor and shadow chancellor have found political agreement. George Osborne and Ed Balls were appearing on Robert Rinder’s Good Year, Bad Year due to be aired on Channel 4. When asked whether Brexit was really going to […]

Rule by “populist” politicians like Donald Trump and Hungary’s Viktor Orban has a “highly negative” effect on national political systems, Tony Blair’s think tank has warned. The report from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change found that populist leaders stay in post for longer and are less likely to leave office after free and […]

Britain’s most senior police officer has suggested Brexit could put the public at risk if security cooperation with the EU is weakened. Metropolitan Police commissioner Cressida Dick said she hoped police would have “as much as possible of the instruments” they currently have, such as database access, or something very similar as quickly as possible […]

At the end of a momentous year, JOHN KAMPFNER surveys the febrile European political scene and finds embattled leaders, emboldened populists and a looming election in which everything could be up for grabs. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Picture: PHILIPPE WOJAZER/AFP/Getty Images – Credit: AFP/Getty Images Sometimes the most obvious statements […]

British productivity following Brexit would fall below the European average for the first time since records began, new research has found. The research – commissioned for the People’s Vote campaign – found that under the prime minister’s Brexit deal, productivity in the UK would be significantly lower than if we were to Remain in the […]